Copyright

August 10, 2013

In February, friends came up with an amazing and unexpected idea to help me do the next phase of research into sheep and wool, which involves a study of Shetland sheep and their fleeces. Shetlands are really complex, even controversial, and consideration of their development and current situation encompasses many questions relating to fibers, regardless of type or breed. They're a microcosm of the wool world—physically, historically, and culturally. I wrote about "Why Shetlands?" in an earlier blog post, and that piece was initially constructed for and appears in the Dreaming of Shetland e-book that is coming into being through these folks' amazing and unexpected idea.

Their idea: to ask a selection of talented people each to contribute a pattern, an essay, or some other item to what would be combined into an e-book anthology, the sales of which would be used to fund my Shetland inquiries: essentially, a community fundraiser, operated informally (albeit rigorously) and in ongoing fashion. Here's the associated website.

The gist: They asked me to meet with them before lunch one day at an event we were mutually participating in. We sat down in the empty dining room. They told me that they had "an idea" and that all I would need to do was "say yes" and "have a PayPal account." Well, I do have a business PayPal account, which I use mostly to buy fiber and books (about fiber, surprised?).

So they gave me the outline: people within the knitting community who might have an interest in seeing what I would come up with in the way of research would be asked to contribute a pattern each to a collection. The plan was to have the whole project happen quickly, so that patterns that would be included would likely already exist—for example, a neat design that was still in the files because it had never found a public home.* The instigators (more on them both below and in a future post) would assemble, design, and set up an e-book collection through Ravelry (to keep this as simple as such an outrageously ambitious endeavor could be). All proceeds would go to my research.

* It only sort of worked that way. A lot of people got inspired to create original designs.

I was, and am, gobsmacked. I prefer to be stubbornly self-reliant and can be more independent than most cats. Yet I am also obstinate about my research, which was being implemented at about 1/1000 the speed that I envisioned, for lack of resources.

I looked across the table at their inspired faces. I thought about the sheep. I thought about the wool. I thought about knitters and weavers and spinners of the future. I thought about all of us now, and how much we appreciate knowledge that deepens our craft and our appreciation for life. I thought about how I am relatively reserved (yes, I can talk fine in public—when I'm talking about fibers) and that this would put me in a bit of a new spotlight—and I decided that the spotlight would be on the sheep, and I could just be a lens. And I thought that at this point in my life, I'm in a position to ask questions and know how to dig for information, if not answers, and to put together what I discover in ways that others may find interesting and useful. I thought about the sheep again—all the sheep, in addition to the Shetlands—and all of the lovely, dramatically versatile and dissimilar wools they grow, wools that we need to know better. And I envisioned that at the end of it all, lots more people would be connected to, and know the joy of, the sheep and their fleeces. And that it could be fun for everyone involved. (And a lot of work. I had no illusions about that. They didn't, either, although like all good things it has become more than anyone expected.)

I slowly nodded yes, making myself say the word out loud as well. I knew that, because of the people who were already involved and those who might be, this would be a big deal.

Yes.

For the most part, I was asked to pretty much stay out of it—to, if I had a spare moment, go research sheep and wool. So I was asked to write the "Why Shetlands?" piece and to review the sheep photos that would be on the cover (to determine whether they were of the Shetland breed, or simply sheep of other breeds in Shetland). While I've seen the photography for the projects (both the photos and the designs make me want to pick up my needles, and in one case I already have), the book is as new to me as it will be to those who choose to buy it.

The scope: The project got quite a bit bigger and more complicated than the initial intention (doesn't everything?). As matters proceeded, the organizers needed to put a cut-off date on participation in order to actually make it happen within anyone's lifetime. They also decided to release the book in sections, in order to make the logistics (and the file sizes) manageable, although signing up for it once will, over the next several months, yield the whole thirty patterns and associated articles and photographs.

In the interval between the idea's origin in February and the initial release a few days ago, two things became apparent to me. One was that without some practical help, it would take years, or decades, to accomplish anything toward this research, and the second was that the moral and psychological support of the idea alone has already been hugely beneficial.

A quick note: Even though the release of the e-book has been "soft," without a lot of fanfare and the "announcement" mostly by word-of-mouth so far, the initial proceeds have already enabled me to obtain resources that have previously been very difficult or impossible for me to access.

Whose idea was this?

The idea came from Donna Druchunas, and Anne Berk immediately stepped in to collaborate, enlisting her husband, Bill Berk, to do the photography. Donna's husband Dominic Cotignola provided invaluable, and mostly unheralded, technical help.

But listing those individual responsibilities obscures the closely integrated teamwork that even from a distance I was fully aware of, as they nurtured a spark into a whole series of warm campfires to offer to the fiber world.

It says "for Deborah Robson," but I'm just the conduit here. Although yes, I have a dream that this research and our mutually growing efforts and knowledge will have a long-lasting and positive effect on our fiber activities and on communities' and individuals' and several landscapes' health.

Whose work is featured?

The designers and researchers and creative souls who have graciously and enthusiastically come forward to make Dreaming of Shetland a reality include:

I'm looking forward to seeing and reading it myself! One of the reasons it took me a few days to put this post together was that when I got the preview section last week, I read Donna's dedication and had to compose myself. I always see the shortfalls of what I do: I want to do more than any day permits, and I want to raise all of our boats together. Donna's words let me see that even when my reach exceeds my grasp, I may be getting a handle on some things in a way that's helpful.

So if you are inclined (with all those incredibly talented people involved, I don't know how anyone could resist, even if this were "just" a regular book), there's information on the website (of course they put together a website {wry grin}).

Meanwhile, I need to get back to the quest. As soon as my eyes quit misting up and I can see clearly again.

March 20, 2013

This follows the previous post and pertains to the reason for my next research area, Shetland sheep and wool, and to the impetus behind the Dreaming of Shetland project (website to come at dreamingofshetland.com).

Donna Druchunas sent a link to some fantastic photographs of Shetland and of sheep on Shetland.

Deb:

GORGEOUS pictures, and interestingly they point out some of the challenge in this whole project—or at least the sheep photos do!

The only sheep shown that I'd bet is a full Shetland is that ram with the curling horns (this is not a reason not to use the photos: all of the sheep shown grow Shetland wool because they grow wool on Shetland).

But the others don't have characteristics of the Shetland breed, most obviously the fluke-shaped tail (a short tail, narrower at its tip than at its base). That black-faced one is at least part, and possibly full, Suffolk. Some of the sheep that do have tails like Northern European short-tails don't have the Shetland body type.

COOL.

Not a reason not to use images. But I'd go with lambs or pictures of sheep in the distance or that ram.

Donna:

I guess we should include a short article about this topic because people will be wondering and interested. Would you want to do that or would it be too much? I would just want it to be "a letter from Deb" off the top of your head. Don't do any research FOR this, just outline the questions that come to your mind quickly and show why the research and further work is needed? Is that something you could do in 15 minutes or so?

[Insert a short interval here.]

Deb:

Well, more like 60 minutes, and it's definitely a "letter," not a "draft," much less finished piece. And now I need to quit, because the temptation is to revise and refine. . . .

______

Why Shetlands?

As I've recovered from the intense work involved in The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, the opportunities for future inquiry arise on all sides, and there are more fascinating possibilities than can be even listed, much less adequately considered, in a lifetime. Sheep and their wools continue to capture my interest and attention—even more than before, because of what I learned in writing the "big book." So the question over the past couple of years has been where next to invest my curiosity, since it won't be put to rest!

With about 1400 sheep breeds identified globally, I won't be able to cover them all in the years available to me, however many those are. The Sourcebook included fibers that English-speaking fiber folk might reasonably get their hands on. Natural next steps would include covering more sheep breeds from continental Europe, and that's a series of topics for which I'm collecting both fiber samples and reference books. It's a big enough area, and sufficiently complicated, that it will take years to manage. I'll be working on it.

At the same time, I've been ambushed by the Shetlands. This is a good thing. Shetlands were the most difficult breed to write up for the Sourcebook. They took the most time and raised serious questions that apply to all sheep, through all time, although not in as concentrated a form as for the Shetlands.

For publication in 2011 and 2012, Spin-Off magazine had me write up pieces on Soay sheep, Lincoln sheep, and a few puzzling aspects of wool quality. Also for 2012, The Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers asked if I would write an article on the history and development of British sheep breeds. Next, for 2013, PLY magazine tantalized me with the idea of researching the origins of sheep: how they became domesticated, how they traveled around the world, how people have shaped sheep to fit particular environments and how sheep have been willing partners, able to adapt and thrive on every continent except Antarctica. I knew when I said yes that none of these would be an easy assignment. I couldn't resist the questions behind them.

As I've followed these intriguing trails, the Shetlands kept cropping up on the edges, emblematic of ideas relating to thousands of years of history, and of human/animal interdependence, and of breed definition, and of unique (and diverse) textile traditions, and of local and global economics, and of what we fiber artists pick up to spin, or knit, or crochet, or weave—and whether we will have these materials to work with in the future, or not.

Shetlands are (American Livestock Breeds Conservancy) and are not (Rare Breeds Survival Trust) a rare breed. Looking closely, it becomes apparent that whether or not the breed as a whole (whatever that is defined as) is rare, some strains of it, including some of the fleece colors, are quite endangered. Shetlands cannot be easily categorized or described.

Sheep known by one or another group as Shetland sheep grow single-coated fleeces that are very fine or medium in quality; double-coated fleeces that contain several fiber types; crimpy fleeces; wavy fleeces; and everything in between. They grow this wool in multiple countries and landscapes, in flocks shaped by differing human intentions and pressures.

Shetlands connect to the earliest sheep, and they demonstrate what happens when humans influence a breed to fit alternate environments and to respond to economic pressures—in fact, they demonstrate this multiple times, in many ways.

When I was researching the Sourcebook, it was at the point that I read a well-informed account of wools describing Shetland as a "Down" wool that I determined that I needed to spend as much time as necessary coming up with a supportable definition of "Down" wools. [Added note: In the end, I don't include Shetlands within my definition of "Down" wools.]

Shetlands open many questions, for which there are almost certainly no right or definitive answers.

But I think that spending the next year (or more) of my life exploring Shetland sheep and Shetland wool in greater detail will illuminate many aspects of how rich and interesting our fiber world is—in ways that will apply to topics as small as the hats we put on our heads and as large as the global wool marketplace.

I can't wait. In fact, I haven't. I'm already deep into this project. The front page of my first notebook on the topic reads: "All wool, all good," and "What is Shetland wool about?" The study of Shetland sheep and their wool has already begun to reveal to me, and has the potential to show other people who care about these things, a lot about why it's true that "all wool" is "all good," and why we need to pay attention to both history and the future in order to maintain essential values related to being human and being responsible residents of the planet.

March 19, 2013

Updated in July 2013 to add a link here as the Dreaming of Shetland website goes live.

___

Ah, time. There just isn't enough of it. If there were, I'd complete a lot more blog posts. I have ten started in MarsEdit, the program I use for composing, and another few dozen that I've meant to start writing but haven't even gotten as far as jotting down titles and concepts for. Often those ideas sit uncompleted because I have other work that needs to be done instead. The quiet here on the blog never results from lack of enthusiasm or a scarcity of things to share: it's an indication that the days end too quickly.

Thus the conundrum that I presented to a group of fellow fiber artists and writers when we got together in February: How to do more of the sheep and wool research that I feel called to undertake, while also earning a living? Most of the work on sheep and wool involves a lot of time for what amounts to honoraria: payments that recognize the value of what has been produced without actually providing enough to buy groceries or pay the mortgage.

The ideas these creative folk came up with surprised and floored me. I'm still recovering, and while I don't know what the efforts that were launched that evening mean yet in practical terms, the support all on its own has been so affirming that I'm challenged to just take it in. One of the ideas was presented to me with the following introduction: "We have an idea. All you need to do is say 'yes' and have a PayPal account." I had to absorb the proposal that they presented to me for a few minutes, then said, "yes," along with "thank you," and "I do have a PayPal account. It's already part of my freelance business."

Shetland

So there are two primary ideas afoot as a result of that gathering's attention to my sheepy obsessions. They both relate to an upcoming trip to the UK, which in turn has been instigated and is being facilitated by a small group of friends. The entire extended group of interested parties still hasn't resolved the visaissues involved in teaching, so this trip will be focused on research, although as the conversations have evolved other folks are stepping up and working on the paperwork part, and I may be able to teach on a future trip.

When the idea of a trip to the UK first began to be bandied about, the initial questions concerned when, and with what emphasis—which narrows down where. There are many ways to continue the research I did for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, and it would be easy to run off in all directions and end up with scattered bits that don't pull together into substantial insights. There are about 1400 breeds of sheep throughout the world and there is no way I can cover them all. I'm working, slowly, on more of the breeds from continental Europe, mostly with the help and support of people on Ravelry. That's a long-term project and one that so far has no clear boundaries. It will need to perk along in the background until its shape becomes apparent. We all knew a trip to the UK would need to be very focused in order to produce useful results. There are just too many options.

Shetland Wool Week arose as the optimal event around which to plan the trip. Over the past six months or so, I've been pushed toward intensive research on Shetlands, for a lot of reasons. Resources for deepening this research have been dropping onto the path in front of me, one after another, confirming this as a good next organizing principle. I'll have more to say about that as time goes on.

But first here are the two projects that this group of folks came up with barely more than a month ago: the ones that have left me nearly speechless since.

The e-book project: Dreaming of Shetland

A small crew of volunteers is organizing an e-book of patterns, essays, and photographs to be called Dreaming of Shetland to be sold through Ravelry to support my research. While a small crew is putting this together, a large number of people are contributing to the project. It's quite astonishing.

Yes, it will support me, but it will also support the sheep (all sheep, not just Shetlands), and I've been convinced it will also generate a lot of good energy for the people who are helping out, in ways large and small. So I have, indeed, said "yes" and "thank you." (I had a little practice with this earlier, in relation to a different offer. That helped facilitate this opportunity.)

The plan is that the e-book will be available some time in the early summer. Here are some of the materials that the group has generated so far. I really don't have much to do with this. My job is to keep chipping away at the research and writing that I have been set on doing anyway. Knowing that other people are actually interested in this research is a huge plus for me all by itself.

Here's a flyer that they made up to be distributed at festivals and workshops:

The drawing is mine; I've slowly been doing images of sheep, and had not done a Shetland. I didn't have time to do one recently, either, because of an onslaught of deadlines, but it seemed like an essential element of what was happening (plus I really enjoy doing the sketches), so I ended up "stealing" about 20 minutes a day over a couple of weeks to put this ram together. Drawing a Shetland is as complex a task as researching the breed!

I've written a "Why Shetlands?" letter that will be included in the book, and if I can grab the time I will also put it up in the form of a blog post. Because it's actually written, that should be possible.

Donna Druchunas and Anne Berk are coordinating the e-book project, with the able help of Susan Santos, Sarah Jaworowicz, and others: as I said, I'm doing my best to focus on the research itself and not get distracted by the fact that I can't believe all of this is actually happening.

Here's Sarah's preliminary cover design:

Isn't it beautiful? I'm remembering that my job here is to admire and get back to studying sheep! The sheep shown in that lower band of images, while they live on Shetland and produce perfectly fine fiber, are not the Shetland breed. I talked about this distinction between sheep-of-Shetland and Shetland-breed-sheep in The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook on page 189. I'll be looking at the whole context, with an emphasis on the breed. There will be at least one sheep of the Shetland breed in the final cover. (Truly: I have yet to meet a breed of sheep whose wool I didn't like. The second-from-right image there is almost certainly a Suffolk, and last week I taught a day's worth of workshop on Suffolk wool, which is one of the most overlooked treasures of our fiber array.)

Here's Donna's description of the project, from her latest Sheep to Shawl newsletter:

I’m excited to be able to introduce you to a new collaborative project I am working on, Dreaming of Shetland. This will be an ebook featuring a group of incredibly talented designers who are giving of their time and talents to help fund Deborah Robson’s research about Shetland sheep and wool. Over the next few months I will be featuring this project in my newsletter and on Facebook, with updates and information about pre-orders as soon as we are ready to accept payments. I hope you are as excited about this project as I am and I look forward to telling you more soon.

There will be a related website at dreamingofshetland.com (no link because as of this writing it does not yet exist).

The notebooks: And a proposed inside view of the Shetland research project

At the gathering in February, I passed around a notebook I'd used to collect my research for the article I wrote for the first issue of PLY Magazine. The reason was to show part of what I've been up to and how I'm going about it. For that article, I had to leave the computer systems behind and work by hand—a practice that I expect to need to continue while researching the Shetlands. The computer was invaluable for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, and is also essential for the writing portions of other projects including the PLY article and certainly any summations I do of the Shetland research. However, where multiple small bits need to be comprehended and then pulled together, I found the visual and tactile approaches worked best.

Here's a page of the notes pertinent to the PLY article that I took from Juliet Clutton-Brock's A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (1987):

It's essential to keep track of the publication dates of the research and commentary, because the state of knowledge is changing.

I also need to track dates within the material I'm reading. The timeline you see there is something I constructed to put observations in the appropriate sequence.

Here is one spread of notes from a later source, Tapio, et al., "Microsatellite-based Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Domestic Sheep in Northern Eurasia" (2010):

The reaction to this was: "You need to share these."

Me: "HUNH? They're just my notes."

Response: "You need to share your notes on the Shetland project while it is underway."

Not long after that, a member of the group offered to help me set up a subscription-based website on which I can post my thoughts and notes and other artifacts of the journey. We've had time to engage in preliminary conversations about this, but I haven't had time to do more than begin to consider what I might do with it.

Yes, high points of the quest will be on this blog. The subscription site will allow me to devote time to detailed coverage, which can't happen otherwise for the reasons noted at the start of this post. It will also provide interested readers with a central place to find more in-depth information about my research process, along with what I'm learning about the sheep and their wool.

In sum. . . .

There are lots of fantastic ideas bouncing around, and what I need to do now is (1) get on top of mail and finances again, following my recent return from a teaching trip; (2) see whether I can get my taxes for 2012 done without having to file an extension (haven't had time to finish up the data—mileage, inventory, and so on); (3) proof pages for The Field Guide to Fleece; (4) continue organizing all the details (and fiber acquisition) for the remainder of the year's teaching events; and (5) keep up with the freelance editing work.

At the same time, tomorrow night I will, as usual for Tuesday nights when I'm at home in Colorado, go to a coffeeshop for three or four hours. While there, I hope to be able to read and take notes on one Shetland article (maybe two? hope springs eternal). I know which one I will turn to as soon as I get my cup of tea (perhaps Ti Kuan Yin) and bowl of vegetarian soup. That article has been printed out and has been riding around in my backpack, along with the notebook, the highlighters, and the pens, awaiting the moment when I can devote my attention to it.

I can't wait to find out what piece of the puzzle that particular article will fill in. And to make a list of further sources, another task that I have been looking for time to enjoy.

December 02, 2012

It's been a busy six weeks. In addition to finishing work on the manuscript for a new project, I've selected, labeled, taken reference photos of, and packaged more than a hundred locks of wool.

Four breeds are missing.

One (Stansborough Grey) should be en route. I hope we're able to locate sources for the other three quickly enough to meet the deadline. The so-far-missing breeds are:

Brecknock Hill Cheviot—the Welsh breed, not the American Miniature Cheviot which was, through an odd fluke, once called "Brecknock Hill Cheviot";

Est à Laine Merino; and

the new type of Norwegian Spaelsau—the second most common breed in Norway. I do have samples of the older types of Spaelsau. Sometimes the rare breeds are easier to get fiber for than the more prevalent ones, because for the latter a bit of wool needs to be diverted from the processing stream and that's not always simple to accomplish.

(The colored stickers on the Brecknock Hill Cheviot card indicate that the breed is, according to The Sheep Trust, geographically vulnerable.)

I'm also researching two different topics for articles, and have some interesting freelance editing work about to arrive on my desk.

My daughter, who ordinarily does sort my mail while I'm gone but never opens it without checking with me first, confessed that in this instance she couldn't stand the suspense of waiting until I returned from this latest trip to see what had come of the endeavor she'd watched take shape over more than a year. She had opened the plastic wrapper and taken a look. The issue contains an article that I was intrepid enough to undertake writing, called "Tracing the British Sheep Breeds."

There's a story behind this, of course.

More than a year ago, spinning editor Christina Chisholm contacted me and asked if I could write an article for an upcoming special issue on wool, the subject to be "the history and development of British sheep breeds"—as I mentioned in my reply, a "vast topic." Christina indicated that they were looking for "a central lynch-pin educational feature to the whole special focus issue, which will mean that a huge amount of information will have to be condensed. . . ."

Now here's the problem. I knew right up front that this would be a nearly impossible task. Even (perhaps especially) because I had The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook and the Interweave DVD set on spinning rare-breed wools behind me (the reasons Christina had contacted me), I wondered why I'd been chosen for this assignment and whether I really would have the temerity to say yes.

While I have a reasonable amount of common sense in my daily life, I seem to have almost none in determining what jobs I consider too intriguing to decline. I looked at the generous deadline—it was merely July 2011 and they would not need the article until March or April 2012—and considered that I might be able to move forward at a pace that would make it possible to pull off the challenge. I really wanted to dig into "the history and development of British sheep breeds" and see what kind of sense I could make of them. I would simply have to accept that I'd need to do so in a good deal less space than has been devoted to the task by wiser heads before me. The allowable space was 3,000 words (an increase over the journal's regular 2,000-word maximum for a feature).

Well, I was right. It wasn't easy. At the same time, it continued to be irresistible. I had to begin with "what ARE the British sheep breeds?" (a question that led to the chart in the middle photo above) and go from there. This research and writing pursuit is part of why my blog posts were few and far between over the fall, winter, and spring than they might otherwise have been (then, of course, I also need to make a living, so it was time to start traveling to teach workshops, with some family adventures thrown into the mix).

By April 14, I sent Christina a progress report: "Yes, indeed, I've been working on that article. The BIG problem is that it's an impossible topic, although of course I'm not letting that stop me. I keep wrestling with it, and it keeps growing more arms and legs and throwing me to the ground. I get up again and go back at it." I got a bare-bones version of 6,000 words written, and then went to the mountains for two days of concentration, during which I cinched it down to the requisite 3,000 words, which I transmitted by April 24—at which point we began to work on photos. Over the next two months, we worked out the details.

The result is not definitive, but it's a snapshot of how to approach the basic questions about the history and development of British sheep breeds, and some observations that I came to while diving into those questions.

I just read the piece in print for the first time, and while I think a lot (all?) of the statements would benefit from more depth and elaboration, I think it has value as an overview and that, ultimately, it works.

If you're a sheep-and-wool enthusiast, you might want to check out issue 243 of the journal. If you do, let me know what you think. The publication contains a lot of other interesting articles, including one by Margaret Russell and another by Elizabeth Lovick—and much more. The short news blurbs contribute useful information and links. Also, if you think you might be traveling in the British Isles, Isabella Whitworth has been brave enough to assemble a list of woolly sites and events that can be downloaded from the journal's site until August 2013.

February 01, 2012

My previous post laid out the background and my philosophy for presenting the numbers describing fiber qualities in The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. As my first example, I used a breed that was relatively simple, because it's modern and part of its definition involves very specific wool qualities: Cormo.

Although the other breeds I'm going to talk about were significantly more complicated to come up with numbers for, I was able to lay out all of the basic issues with the Cormo (which was not, of course, as straightforward as it "should" have been). So let's look at another breed's scenario. . . .

________

Example 2:

Romney

The Romney is a breed with a long history and a lot of variation. It originated, and obtained its name, in southeastern England. However, it's a successful type of sheep for both wool and meat growing and has been exported around the world. In each locale, breeders have selected for different qualities of fiber. In addition, Romney genetics include the possibility of natural colors. For large-scale industrial production, anything other than pure white wool isn't desirable, but handspinners treasure the lovely colors.

So: what types of numbers could I use to describe the Romney's wool?

As for the Cormo, the first thing I did was simply gather a bunch of data from as many sources as I could find and put the information all in one place:

As before, I sorted by geographic location, when I could tell what that was. Noticeably absent from this list is the Romney Sheep Breeders' Society in the British Isles. When I reviewed its website, there were only subjective descriptions of wool quality (although it did mention "heavy fleeces of 4 to 5kg").

There's quite a lot of overlapping data: Fournier & Fournier's Romney Marsh, The Sheep Trust (UK), and the British Coloured Sheep Breeders Association have nearly identical information. Fournier & Fournier have separate data for the New Zealand version of the breed.

Then I got out my pencil and started sketching relationships.

As the data began to come into focus for me, I started over on another sheet of paper and sketched in approximate micron-count spans for the sources that only offered Bradford or USDA numbers:

Factors I was watching for as I evaluated sources were (1) geography, (2) color (if specified), (3) date of source (since breeding goals shift with time as well as location), and (4) overall reliability of the source—not necessarily in that order!

While there's definitely overlap, New Zealand Romneys look like they have fiber on the sturdier end, and the Americans are breeding for more fineness. Fleece weights were a bit scattered.

White Romney samples, with two-ply yarn

In the summaries, I wanted to indicate the potential for variation by region. Here's what I came up with for Romney:

For the Cormo I gave the USDA or Bradford grades less weight, because the breed is new and part of its definition involves fleece quality and consistency criteria based on micron-count data. For the Romney, the breed's long history suggests giving the Bradford grades a bigger say in the compiled description.

Overall, wool classification is moving toward the use of more objective—i.e., micron count—measurement systems. For a number of breeds, the contemporary preference for fine wools is pushing the breeders to select in favor of the "skinny" end of the spectrum. In selecting numbers to represent the Romney, what I did was attempt to embody the effects of these forces as I saw them appearing in the data I collected.

For some breeds (although this wasn't obvious in the Romney), I observed differences in quality designations between white and colored wools. That may be because the genes that produce color in those breeds act in combination with genes that result in slightly coarser fiber, or because the breeders who are going for color like sturdier wool, or for other reasons. There's a lot we humans haven't figured out yet about sheep.

Gray Romney sample with carded rolags

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In some cases, the metric/imperial conversions I'm giving here are not identical to those printed in the book. My numbers are more rounded-off, since the things we're measuring aren't manufactured to precise dimensions and thinking about them in ballpark numbers is more practical. Copyeditors, of which I was one for years, sometimes get more precise in their attention to details than the material warrants. For example, for Romney fleece weights, the book says "8–12 (or more) pounds (3.6–5.4 or more kg)." I'd go with "3.5 to 5.5kg." It's as good an approximation in the metric universe as "8 to 12 pounds" is in the imperial one. It's also easy to remember.

_______

Charcoal Romney sample with "bird's nests" of hand-combed top.

Whatever its numbers, Romney is a versatile wool. It's easy for beginning spinners to manage. It also will accommodate any preparation or spinning approach more experienced hands may want to try with it.

Just as a point of curiosity, although all three of the samples shown here have well-defined, bold crimp, as is typical of Romney, each has a different type of crimp. Crimp patterns are fascinating! And way beyond what we can consider here and now.

January 26, 2012

I've been promising, or threatening, to write a post about how I came up with the numbers used to describe the fibers in The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook—you know, the parts in the boxes, where the text talks about fiber diameters, staple lengths, fleece weights, and the like.

The short answer is that . . . well, there isn't a short answer. The shortest is that I didn't just copy numbers from somewhere else. Instead, I did research, drew on almost forty years of experience looking at and handling wool, and came up with numbers that I thought would best represent what a fiber person (for example, me) could expect to find.

Two decisions, one philosophical and one practical, set the foundation for my work with the numbers.

Philosophically, I wanted the data we provided to reflect what fiber folk were likely to hold in their hands: in other words, to give a reasonable ballpark idea of the range of fibers an animal, or breed, is probably growing.

From the practical perspective, I wanted a consistent approach to underlie all the sets of numbers.

Co-author Carol Ekarius and I had already spent months deciding what would be on our list of animals to cover.

The first thought that arises for anyone engaged in such a quest is to use the numbers published by breed associations. Yet those aren't available for all breeds and not all types of animals have breed associations. In addition, those numbers may reflect a particular group of people's ideal for judging animals in the show ring, not what's showing up on the shearing floor.

What comes next is wondering how people who have written down numbers before have decided what to use—but that lasts only a moment, because in almost all cases the back stories can't be discovered. A reasonable approach would be to choose an ostensibly reliable source and copy its numbers. I've done this in the past, as a result of personal curiosity and for my own notebooks, and it takes a long time.

Yet this time I was responsible to more than my personal curiosity—or, rather, to new levels of that curiosity as well as to a potential community of fellow fiber-users. So I moved to a new level that involved gathering as many numbers as possible for each type of fiber from a wide variety of sources, and then taking a look at them to see if I could discern patterns or irregularities.

To demonstrate my process, I'm going to use four sheep breeds that presented radically different problems in deciding what numbers to use:

a very consistent breed (Cormo)

a breed with a lot of variety (Romney)*

two breeds with almost no data (Santa Cruz and Hog Island)

* If I'm feeling brave when I write up the "a lot of variety" section, I'll mention the Cheviots again. . . . Does it indicate anything that, when I went to link to a blog post about the Cheviots, I could remember the EXACT MONTH AND YEAR when I had a serious tussle with their identities and data? I have a good memory, but for things like "when did I write that specific post?" I generally need to refer to my notes. Not in this case.

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The numbers part of writing The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook operated as a separate sub-project and had its own dedicated working spaces, including a physical folder:

It was about 1.5 inches (4 cm) thick. Inside were sections with pockets:

It also willingly held a few extra manila envelopes of papers.

I happened across this organizer while I was buying yet another dozen cardboard file boxes to hold fiber samples. I bought it on a whim, feeling extravagant because I had no precisely defined use for it. It became a reliable sidekick. Although the data it held was partnered with a lot of computer files, my thinking processes took place with the help of the papers it protected.

As I mentioned, I began by simply gathering data presented by other people. I looked at the Oklahoma State University site and at Wikipedia, of course, in part because many fibers are listed and it's nice to start a search with success (or to be warned that the digging will need to be deep). It was interesting to discover later what the sources of these sites' data were—when I located matching material elsewhere that appeared to predate the compilations. I was able to perceive this cross-linking between sources (print and web) from time to time throughout my research, and it helped me evaluate and weight my results.

Then I consulted as many breed and trade associations as I could locate, performed multiple web searches, and prowled through a couple of shelves full of books. Repeatedly.

When I had exhausted at least myself, if not the options (although I worked to plumb those as deeply as I could), I assembled in a spreadsheet the data I had found for each type of animal or breed of sheep.

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Example 1:

Cormo

Cormo is a relatively modern sheep breed developed with strictly defined performance standards, including for the quality of the wool. Individual animals that don't meet those requirements are culled. You'd think I could have almost instantaneously processed this breed through the numbers-cycle. While it was easy relative to other fibers, it shows that none of my decisions worked by cut-and- paste.

Sometimes I obtained information in imperial designations, sometimes metric, sometimes the Bradford or USDA numbers. (These two systems use the same notation system, although they are not completely interchangeable.) I started by putting whatever information I had on one sheet of paper (well, sometimes, as for the Romney, two sheets of paper).

Here's my Cormo list, in its neatly presented spreadsheet form:

Because I ended up looking for regional variations, I coded the column just to the right of my source indicators for the potential geographic bias of the data, if I could perceive one. (1-US, 2-UK, 3-NZ, 4-AU.) If I wasn't sure, I left the column blank. (Fournier & Fournier sometimes got coded as 3-NZ—when the data matched what I found in a New Zealand breeders' association. Sometimes I could tell where Wikipedia's information had been drawn from. In this case, the Oklahoma site referred specifically to Australian sources.)

While Cormo was one of the simplest breeds to come to conclusions about, you'll note discrepancies in the collected numbers.

In staple length, the two sources I found said 2.5 to 4 inches OR 4 to 5 inches. Well, 4 inches seemed like a safe place to land, but there will always be some variety in a natural item like wool. I knew from experience that not every Cormo fleece is exactly 4 inches long.

Staple length can be defined either as "how much wool can these sheep grow in a year?" or as "how long was the wool that the shearer clipped off?" They're not the same. Which were people talking about?

Suspending judgment temporarily, I simply moved to other parts of the summary to see what I could learn.

In fiber diameter, I found additional intriguing oddities. Initially, the numbers looked pretty consistent at 17 to 23 microns, with 21 to 23 microns coming from In Sheep's Clothing (Fournier & Fournier), possibly a reflection of the authors' New Zealand origins. (The breed developed in Australia, but there might be more focused goals among New Zealand breeders. Or not. This was part of my discovery path.)

Turning to ASI, which is the American Sheep Industry Association, I found an even more arresting set of numbers. These were at cross-purposes to each other. This source specified both 17 to 23 microns AND 46s to 56s USDA grades. The micron equivalents of USDA 46s to 56s are 26.4 to 32.7. The site did helpfully specify that it was looking at American Cormo, which might mean it was recording information on a regional variation, even though with this breed the standards appeared to be both strict and internationally consistent.

Fournier & Fournier, with their 21 to 23 microns, in addition specified 64s to 58s. They didn't say whether this was Bradford or USDA, but in either case a ballpark equivalency would be 21 to 27 microns. The grades corresponding to 21 to 23 microns would instead be roughly 64s to 62s, a much narrower span.

I'm skipping lightly here over a discussion of how Bradford numbers differ from USDA grades. We did talk about that in the book. By the way, I constructed the chart comparing fiber counts and USDA grades that appears on pages 12 and 13 of The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook to help myself keep track of all this stuff.

Now, without having resolved anything, I turned to fleece weights. As an initial observation, rams and ewes tend to produce different amounts; rams grow heavier fleeces. Yet a lot more ewes are kept and shorn, so sometimes fleece-weight numbers ignore the rams. Like staple lengths, fleece weights are subject to a lot of interpretation, because the parameters aren't specified. In addition to "ram or ewe?" there's "a full year's maximum growth?" and "skirted, or not?"

The general assumption is that a fleece weight will be grease, not clean; a full year's growth; from a ewe; probably lightly skirted.

But you never know whether that is the case for a particular set of numbers unless it's spelled out.

Where my chart says (e), that means the source specified that this was the weight of ewes' fleeces. (Similarly, some of my charts have both (r) and (e) measurements.)

The Cormo Sheep Conservation Registry liked 12 pounds as a nice, single number, presumably an average. Fournier and Fournier were in the same vicinity, with 9 to 12 pounds. ASI thought fleeces from this breed would be a good deal lighter, 5 to 8 pounds, but they also specified that they were talking about ewes.

When I did my research on Cormos, I did not find micron counts or fleece weights on the Cormo Sheep Conservation Registry website, which is now listing 21 to 23 microns and 5.5 to 12 pounds.

Okay, what to do with all these flying numbers?

At this point, I began to draw pictures.

When I first felt backed into one of these corners, I was on a retreat in Salida, Colorado. This was fortunate, because my retreat times gave me opportunities to stick with one thorny issue or another until I had resolved it, something that wasn't anywhere near as easy when I was home and juggling writing tasks with regular duties and interruptions.

I remember the morning I stared at a sheet of statistics that were not coalescing. I felt compelled to confront the problem with a pencil and some graph paper. I took a brain-clearing walk to the office supplies store and splurged on a spatious pad of quadrille paper, 11 x 17 inches of open territory on each sheet. Back at the cottage, I wrote reference numbers across the long side of one sheet and then sketched where all my different sources thought a particular breed's wool should be (I may have started with the Romneys).

This turned out to be a breakthrough. During my retreat time, I hand-wrote a number of these sheets and refined my system. When I got back to my home computer (and its printer), I made up an Illustrator file with the key across the top and lots of guidelines, like my quadrille paper, in the body of my form. I printed out blanks and used them the same way that I had the big sheets. With pencil. These got tucked into my blue pocket file, either alphabetically by breed or, when I was looking for patterns in particular groups, in clusters by family or fiber type.

The top row of numbers represents micron counts, in crisp, even numbers. Next comes the Bradford scale, and below that the micron counts broken into fragments (with standard deviations) assigned to Bradford-like numbers when the USDA grades were established. Below that, there are the traditional fine/medium/coarse/very coarse designations, and the bottom row relates all the other measurement methods to the old blood system.

What I ended up with for Cormo, as my final numbers to go in the book's box of data:

I'm sure some Cormo fleeces are as short as 2.5 inches, but the wonkiness in the ASI wool grades made me mistrust that low end. Of the Cormo wool I've seen, the 4- to 5-inch range seems typical, although some has been shorter.

It seems clear that 21 to 23 microns is where the breeders would like the wool to be. It also seems likely that some may be as fine as 17 microns.

Because of the difficulty of confirming Bradford versus USDA throughout the entire inquiry, and because many people are familiar with those methods of describing fiber diameters, we supplemented the micron counts for fiber diameter with what we called spinning counts, meant to communicate in terms similar to those of the two closely related older systems.

For this breed, one developed at a time when micrometer measurements were coming into fashion and one that is defined in part in terms of the micron counts of its wool growth, I gave more weight to the ranges in microns than to the USDA-Bradford-style numbers that were causing problems. In order to get our "spinning counts," I translated from the micron measurements, coming up with 62s for the 23-micron end of the range and 80s for the 17-micron end. It seems pretty clear that most of the wool will be 21 to 23 microns, or 64s to 62s, but we couldn't write a whole essay like this about every breed.

I settled on a range of 5 to 12 pounds to take into account the span from what was probably a light ewe fleece to what was likely a heavy ram fleece.

Wool is a natural, not manufactured, material. It will always have variability—more than anyone coming newly to the topic of studying it can begin to imagine. Getting more precise numbers would require a dedicated research project for each breed (with an extensive budget for communication with breeders, likely including travel, as well as sampling and analysis). The end results would not serve our intended purpose any better than what I'd done.

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Having wrestled a clutter of numbers to a ground of my own defining, I would let myself spin some samples, as a reminder of what it was all about: a person, at a wheel, with some fiber, enjoying the process of making yarn.

And that's enough for one day. I'll continue later.

Spinning photo taken on a writing/research/spinning retreat in the mountains of Colorado, March 2009. Photo by writing friend Judy Fort Brenneman.

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Information and new sources continue to appear. Here are a couple of items that would have fed into my research, except that they appeared after I had to call it quits and give the manuscript to the publisher. (We tweaked until the last minute, but couldn't continue the fundamental heavy lifting for that long.) First there's an article with great quotes from Ian Downie, who developed the Cormo breed. Second, a new registry was established in 2009, also too late for inclusion.

The new Cormo Breeders Coalition has this to say about the wool: "Sample from mid-side 17–23 micron. Consistent wool with 90% of wool within a two micron range. Staple length 3.5” to 5.5”. Dense soft wool. Fleece weight mature ewe 5–8 lbs." Add this set of numbers to my list.

There's always more to be discovered! Sometimes those discoveries will result in corrections to previous conclusions. In this case, I read that and said, "So far, so good for my conclusions on that breed."

January 17, 2012

Before I launch into a fairly technical discussion, I want to mention one of the things that makes it all worthwhile. This week's Spinning Daily newsletter shows what Betsy Alspach did following the SOAR workshop that she took with me this past October. Thanks to Betsy for continuing her enjoyment of the fibers we played with; for making her magic skein; and for sharing it and the story. Click the image to read the whole article online.

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The nitty-gritty

I've been researching and exploring new software solutions. As I do so, I would like to shine a spotlight on a piece of software that I came across by accident, as a result of a series of computer disasters. I treasure it. It is, and will continue to be, key to my work.

When I began research for The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, I employed PCs running Windows XP and, the primary machine for that project, a laptop running Linux. I organized my research in traditional computer folders. The method was cumbersome, but familiar. I did a lot of tedious keyboard work—for example, making notes from websites—while remembering, and being glad to be past, the days of writing longhand on index cards.

About that time, the PCs started not playing nicely and I lost about two years' worth of income-producing work: not because my hard drive crashed or my files were lost, but because all my time (and a lot of money, hiring consultants) was spent trying to get the PCs to let me get something accomplished other than talking to tech support.

Cutting to the chase, after waiting far longer than I should have (because although the solution cost a lot, so did the troubleshooting), I ditched all but one of the PCs, bought a couple of Macs, and . . . discovered

I like Scrivener so well that even though time now is short, I opened up Illustrator and played with some type in a garish display of enthusiasm. (That's P22 Vale Pro, a dignified face that I've abused amused(?) with an array of colors.)

In 2011, a version of Scrivener became available for PCs; in 2008, it was Mac-only. If I'd known about it, I would have figured out how to buy a Mac just to run it. Wow, did it make my life easier for the extended, focused, broad-based, complex project that became The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. I'm not sure who told me about Scrivener: my niece, Corey, or my daughter's best friend, Jenny, or both. They, and the program, saved whatever shreds of sanity I had left after the PC nightmares.

This will be a nuts-and-bolts post about organization and process. Keep in mind that I was using an earlier version of Scrivener. I've upgraded, but I haven't implemented any new tricks in this legacy file. I also didn't master all of the software's capacities in the version I used then. I didn't have to. Without asking a lot of me, Scrivener provided a flexible, friendly, reliable foundation for a huge project.

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The Scrivener screenshots should be clickable for larger versions. I generally try to keep my images small, but because some people may want to see more detail and I still don't want to hog bandwidth for my friends who are on dial-up (yes, some are), I'm trying something new.

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Moving into Scrivener

I'll start with my overall organizational scheme. I'll drill down into it, then back up to show part of my working process. The entire process would require another book to explain. . . . I hope that what I'm presenting here is helpful and clear.

Keep in mind that you're seeing the final working file. It evolved over several years and through many iterations. Scrivener is so accommodating that way. I would save a snapshot (so I could go back, if I needed to), move things around, and keep making forward progress as I did so. I never did have to go back to a saved version. And I should mention that one of the things I like about Scrivener is that everything in it can be accessed without the program, should computer disasters occur. I don't find a link explaining that detail right now, but I remember it clearly. Scrivener's storage methods are not proprietary.

I started by importing my existing PC folders full of files into Scrivener, which was easy, even though there were heaps of them. Then I started arranging and rearranging, as well as continuing with my research and doing things I couldn't do before—like importing web pages instead of re-keying the pertinent bits.

The Draft folder: overall conceptual framework and a container for final files

In Scrivener, a Draft folder can contain only text, not images or other miscellaneous file types. So I used that top, Draft section for an overview of where we were going, and then as a container for final files. The heavy lifting took place in the Research folder.

This is the big picture, the view from space. Within each folder, we estimated the components' final page counts. The associated file for each family or group sketched out how we intended to use those pages. The allocations changed, of course, but you see the "introductory section" above was scheduled for about 28 pages.

I also ultimately made a second Scrivener project file for Fleece & Fiber. The original project collection ended up being dedicated to the sheep, with cross-references to the second file for all the other animals and the peripheral research (synthetics, silk, and plants). I did keep the old folders in the original file, mostly because I didn't need to take them out (speed, speed . . . ).

Here's the breakdown for the sheep section:

At the bottom of the sheep folder, there's a subfolder called "Sheep reference files for proofing," which contained the text-only versions that we compiled into the final manuscript. I worked FROM this area in Research down into the Draft folder, and then brought my finished work back up here.

The next view shows both the organizing pane on the left and a portion of one of the component files in the window on the right. I've highlighted the file for the English Longwool family. At the right, you can see what breeds we planned to include in this section and the estimated number of pages for each (the bottom showing some of the other breeds we needed to keep in mind as we prepared this section, even though they aren't English Longwools):

A good six months' worth of work preceded the establishment of these folders, during which co-author Carol Ekarius and I went back and forth through e-mail, Skype, and in-person meetings about what would be included and how we would organize it. That's where the "family" and "group" units originated. Sheep breeds can be sorted and associated with each other in infinite numbers of ways. Our final method balanced my fiber-related wish list with Carol's livestock-focused perspective.

I haven't checked yet to see how closely the finished book conforms to the listed page-count targets. Everything changed constantly as we proceeded. (Silk and synthetics obviously weren't part of the scope of our finished work. We pulled them out in the interest of completing the book before the turn of the 22nd century.)

The Research folder: where I lived

Unhampered by the sensible yet strict limitations of the Draft section, a Scrivener project's Research area can contain many types of files: text, images, imported web pages. . . . Because of its flexibility, the research section of the Fleece & Fiber projects (numbers 1 & 2) became my electronic home for several years.

Here is the highest-level view of the sheep-corral Scrivener project, with the research subfolders revealed. It's deceptively (and comfortingly) simple.

Yarns contained details about potential sources for sample yarns (as opposed to fibers). That was mostly Carol's department, although when I came across options while I was doing other research, I'd make notes here and then tell her about them.

I'm going to demo with the SHEEP research.

To make the second project for the OTHER MAMMALS, I copied the original all-encompassing file, renamed it, and deleted all the sheep info from that copy. The X and Z codes in the folder names are my signals that this is information peripheral to the current project, although it's stuff I want to keep track of.

Going deeper into research

Now we begin to get serious. Here's the next level of files and folders under SHEEP research:

At the top are templates that I used for specific types of files, and a couple of running bibliography files. Scrivener now has (and may have had then) better ways to manage templates and bibliographies. My manually implemented methods worked fine, although I pushed the limits of practicality. For the next big project (she says, with trepidation), I'll do more with templates and corkboards. I really didn't need them this time.

Here's a quick side trip to see the contents of my templates folder:

Back to the main tour.

I organized the sheep breeds (and types) alphabetically in subfolders. Initially the folders encompassed larger chunks of the alphabet, say A through F. As time went on, I had to slice more finely. The S breeds ultimately needed two folders!

Here's the C folder, which I'll use for the demo because there were enough breeds to make a one-letter group but not so many I can't get them into a screenshot of reasonable size.

My comprehensive list included breeds that were mentioned in sources I consulted but that have become extinct. (The x in front of the name reminded me not to pay too much attention once I had resolved the breed's status: having these records within the file was useful when I was tracing the development of other breeds that still exist.)

A few of the breeds in that list did not end up in the finished book because we ran out of time. If we had fiber, we fit the breed in. If not, we were forced to let some go. We discussed mules as a category (for example, Cheviot Mule), but mules are crossbreds so the many types of mules didn't get individual treatment.

There are also cross-references in this list. CVM ended up being filed under R for Romeldale, because CVM is currently being treated as a specific type of Romeldale and not as a separate breed (there was a time when it was classed differently). To keep myself from wondering whether I'd lost my CVM notes, I made a blank file to tell me where I'd put them.

Clun Forest is highlighted in the screenshot because I'm going to use it as my example in drilling down farther. Within the Clun Forest folder, which is shown in its finished form, are the DRAFT (working text), a SAMPLE (spinning notes), BREED NOTES, which contained my summary of my research, which is in the stack (rather than folder) of Resource files. The files within the folder progress, in level of completion, from bottom to top:

All of the files and folders contain the breed name, so if things got out of order I could put them back. Items moved constantly as I was working, and this naming convention served as a safety net. I added notes to the FOLDER names about the level of completion for that breed, so I didn't have to open the folders to see where I needed to turn my attention next.

EVERY BREED had a set of files that looked like these. Many sets were much more extensive.

The Resource files got the major action at the start.

I had a template file that stayed at the top of the resource pile called RESEARCH LIST. It summarized the basic resources that I wanted to be sure I checked for each breed. If there was no information on the breed in that resource, I'd mark "none" so I'd remember that I'd already done it. For example, there are no notes for the Clun Forest from Ryder (Sheep and Man). Because Ryder was a primary resource that I was unlikely to skip, yet the information in it is diffuse and requires time to assemble, I might think this was an oversight. I could check my research list and discover it wasn't.From here on, the screenshots show the folder organization on the left and part of the view of the highlighted file itself on the right. Scrivener, of course, has a larger screen area and shows more of the file. I've just cropped my images to keep this discussion as nimble as possible.

I had, indeed, checked Ryder. Yes, he had something to say about Clun Forests, but not enough to warrant a whole file of notes. (Often my Ryder notes were extensive.) On the summary page, I recorded page numbers and topics, in case I needed to retrieve a specific piece of information later.

"Dohner (and mixed sources)" above means that this was an imported file from early research and I'd keyed information from several locations into a single file. Once I was in Scrivener, I did separate out the Dohner portion, because the book (Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock and Poultry Breeds) was one of my most important sources. (There's an individual file for it later in the list.) (Scrivener handles multiple files much better than my old C:/sheep folder did, and lets me look at the contents, not just guess at them based on the cryptic names I've given them. Oh, and its search functions are superb!)

The point was not to maintain the system perfectly but to set up scaffolding strong enough to support the bigger tasks of research and writing.

Once I had completed the review of resources, I compiled BREED NOTES into which I cut and pasted (or typed my comments about) the highlights from my searches. This file consisted of quotes and summaries, and is what I put in front of me when I actually started to write (using Scrivener's split-screen function, also a boon at many other times).

See the note about "Data transferred to Numbers" at the bottom of the righthand pane? While Scrivener doesn't handle spreadsheet information especially well, I managed to put some spreadsheets into my BREED NOTES files and to manipulate some data there. I supported this with Numbers (Mac spreadsheet) files; that's part of the "how did I come up with the numbers?" discussion. (Another idea on my list of topics to write about here is how I decided what numbers to put in the breed data boxes for The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook.But that wasn't a Scrivener task.)

When I spun fiber from the breed, I made succinct notes about the samples, the tools and techniques I used, and my subjective impressions. I kept a number of the variables standardized, for speed and ease of record-keeping, so those items aren't in the notes. Unless otherwise specified, I used a Lendrum folding wheel with a standard flyer, on its highest-speed whorl.

For some breeds, I made a lot of samples. I chose Clun Forest for this demo because it has all the necessary parts but was not complicated. Each SAMPLE file refers to one source or color of fiber—i.e., one fleece or batch. If I made more than one skein from the same wool, all my experiments are in the same file. (My sample notes are backed up by a separate database (print and electronic) of the fibers we obtained, where they came from, and what they were like. There's enough information here—Hagerstown, MD—for me to locate more detailed background on this wool.)

Finally, I would write. That step occurred in a DRAFT file (still in the Research section, not the Draft section).

When I finished, I would send a copy of that file to Carol, because this was the point at which our writing process became collaborative.

When I sent Carol a file, I marked its status in another Scrivener record I made up to track where we were in our final coordination on each breed, because we sure didn't work in lockstep—as individuals or as a team—from page 1 to the final page! Our major collaborative activities occurred at the beginning of Fleece & Fiber, with a determination of what we would cover and how it would be organized, and at the end, when we blended our contributions into what we think, and hope, is a seamless whole. In between, we kicked ideas and tasks back and forth as needed, but worked independently for the most part.

I put this tracking file under "Templates," back up at the top of the Research folder so I could find it easily.

I still kept within this list the names of breeds and types that we were not covering. Having that information readily available saved time and sanity. In an undertaking of this size, the less time you spend hunting for or wondering about things, the better.

At the bottom of the Templates group, you'll see a TIME PERMITTING summary. This was a place for me to note tasks I'd thought of to do, if we had time: additional types of samples to spin from specific fibers I'd had to set aside in order to move to the next; sidebars we might have written if we had possessed infinite time and could have printed infinite numbers of pages; and so on. I did complete the most important tasks on the list.

And there is, of course, the whole second Scrivener project file for the Other Mammals, which ended up including the EXTENDED sheep as well.

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Scrivener, my stalwart companion, has requested some software allies

Scrivener is an amazing tool for organizing and writing a massive project. Carol and I also used a lot of spreadsheets. The array sufficed. We made it.

So why am I looking at other software solutions?

I'm asking Scrivener to do jobs it wasn't designed for. It's been doing them exceptionally well to date, but I need to reserve it for what it's best at: organizing and facilitating writing projects, large and small.

Scrivener is fantastic when you know what you want to do. There are other tools that will work better for the amorphous, preparatory stages, and for managing information that may be used in multiple projects, not yet defined. It's also been fine for organizing workshops so far—planning, tracking details, and putting together the materials and handouts—but as I teach more workshops, I need to quit asking Scrivener to bend over backward for me.

I need to supplement Scrivener with a DATABASE to track fibers, yarns, and workshop information. I need a dedicated BIBLIOGRAPHIC system. I need a way to save, sort, organize, and OCR the PDFs and notes I'm gathering, even though I'm not sure which project or projects I'll need them for. And I need a flexible technique for gathering and moving my ideas around before they've become projects, so I can see how my coming-into-focus thoughts relate to each other (by means of a tool that won't let my ponderings get crumpled up and lost in a pile of papers).

I'm currently beginning to learn:

Database:Bento (the learning curve and price are appealing, and it already seems helpful)

Bibliographic system:Bookends (coming along nicely, although I'm not yet sure how it will connect to the other software—actually, the matter of connection is a question I have about everything I'm doing)

Ideas:TinderBox (I have it, and have read a bunch on the forums and have loaded the tutorials onto my computer)

This is going to take a while. Researching, trying out, deciding on, and investing in the tools has taken about a year. Now I need to get conversant enough with them to entrust them with parts of my workflow. I also have deadlines, which would be easier to meet if I had the new systems in place. Yet the time I can dedicate to learning them is limited.

Onward. The eternal balancing act.

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I know this: Scrivener is solid. Even though I've discovered I can't do everything with it, I can do amazing amounts. It's gotten me this far. And Scrivener is a tool that makes work fun.

October 28, 2011

The November/December 2011 issue of PieceWork magazine has arrived! The issue's focus is wool, and editor Jeane Hutchins and I talked early in the planning process about what I might contribute to it. The result is "On the Edge: How a Handful of People Have Preserved Some Rare, Valuable Sheep and Their Wools," which starts on page 34.

Jeane asked for rare sheep. Then we had to figure out what aspect to focus on. She also was thinking about a related project or projects in addition to an article, and because of PieceWork's readership any hands-on components had to be based on readily available yarn. In other words, we couldn't ask people to start by spinning their own. Materials available by internet were okay—a specification that made the whole endeavor possible, because most people's local stores are unlikely to stock breed-specific, much less rare-breed-specific, yarns.

One thing that has fascinated me in my study of sheep is the pivotal role often played by one or two individuals in a whole breed's survival.

So we came up with the idea of an article about a few breeds of rare sheep

that are still with us today in large part because of the actions of identifiable individual human beings, and

whose fiber is available as spun yarn that readers can get their hands on.

Sorting through the possibilities took me a while, and some research on the web to augment what I already knew about yarn suppliers. We ended up with four breeds that fit the criteria we aimed for. In addition,

two of the breeds originated in the British Isles and two originated in North America (I like that balance), and

Jeane found four people, each of whom agreed to design an original project using one of the breeds' fiber.

What fun!

And now it's here.

The breeds are Manx Loaghtan and Leicester Longwool (British Isles) and Navajo-Churro and American Tunis (North America). The projects are:

Navajo-Churro Mittens to Knit, by Alexis Manzanares, working from her grandmother's pattern (with Shepherd's Lamb Certified Organic Churro, blanket, or worsted, weight) (I can't find a web reference for Alexis, but there are a number of links to information on her family'ssheep and wool)

These are all designs my fingers are itching to knit! What a wonderful way to showcase the fibers. I feel like we've gathered at a party to celebrate the survival of four superb and valuable breeds by using their wools. I'd love to see what other people make with these fibers, whether from these patterns or others.

Meanwhile, let's get some more pictures into this blog. There are super photos in the article, but the ones of the swatches are nicely decorative (i.e., a little small), and since they're my samples I can supplement by providing them at a bigger size here. I might as well add photos of sheep and of locks of wool, for the spinnerly and otherwise curious among us.

All photos not otherwise credited are mine.

Manx Loaghtan

Here's my swatch, worked in Cable and Band pattern from Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs (Pittsville, WI: Schoolhouse Press, 1998, p. 133). The yarn is Manx Loaghtan from Blacker Yarns, Cornwall, England. (On the Blacker Yarns site, the Manx Loaghtan yarn is listed under "Welsh" breeds because there's only one breed from the Isle of Man, which is its own sovereignty—and the yarn would likely be overlooked if it had its own category.)

Manx Loaghtan locks are all brown, although they come in a variety of shades of mid-brown—as you can see in the yarns below the locks. The lefthand yarn was spun from a darker fleece. Manx Loaghtan fleeces often have light-colored tips, from sun-bleaching, although the tips in my experience so far have not been fragile (as sun-bleached tips sometimes are).

On all of the lock photographs, the inked-in line is 4 inches/10cm long.

And here's a robust Manx Loaghtan ram with a gorgeous set of four horns:

This next swatch is Diamond and Rib, also from Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs (p. 22), worked in LeicesterLongwool singles yarn from Double J Ranch, Oregon City, Oregon. (There are two Double J Ranches in Oregon. The link goes to the right one.)

The high luster, open crimp, and generous length of the locks are typical of the breed. The lock on top is unwashed, and the one on the bottom is clean. Longwools invite a variety of spinning techniques. Lower left is singles, spun for texture, and lower right is a loosely spun and plied two-ply.

And here's a Leicester Longwool sheep, fairly recently shorn: the breed's fleeces get exquisitely long in a fairly short time. They're often shorn twice a year to keep the fiber to a manageable 5- to 6-inch length (12.5 to 15cm).

Another swatch in singles yarn, this time Navajo-Churro obtained from Gypsy Wools, Boulder, Colorado. Yet another pattern fromBarbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs (I love all of Barbara Walker's treasuries, but this one just might be my favorite): Waterfall (p. 151).

Here are some of the breed's gorgeous natural colors, these grown by Connie Taylor's sheep in southern Colorado:

Navajo-Churro wool combines softness and durability in a unique way. The rare breeds are delightfully distinctive. That's to their benefit, in the realm of genetic variety and delight for us, but it's a negative attribute in an industrial world that prefers its fibers anonymous.

Here's a Navajo-Churro ram: he's got a superior set of four horns, too. Not many breeds of sheep are polycerate, or capable of producing horns in multiples. The fact that we're seeing two such rams on this page is because we're in rare-breed territory. These guys are remarkable even in that realm.

Tunis locks have a lovely open quality to them (except the tips, which often need a little gentle opening). They spin up into a versatile yarn that works well for color definition and (as you can see above) good body in texture patterns. It's darn sweet.

The lambs are born cinnamon-red, and they lighten up as they mature to a creamy-white color, although they retain the warm tones on their faces and legs.

Left to right: Navajo Churro, American Tunis, Leicester Longwool, and Manx Loaghtan.

Aren't they pretty? All the things we can make with these splendid, renewable fibers—!

Check out the new PieceWork. There are a lot of other great articles about wool in it, including CharlotteBooth's exploration of ancient Coptic socks, Lithuanian beaded wrist warmers by DonnaDruchunas, a section by Evelyn Clark featuring Icelandic wool, and more. I just need more knitting (and spinning) time.

August 26, 2011

While driving 3400 miles in August, I also knitted about 18 swatches (more on that later). I also had a traveling fiber emergency. It led, as such things do, to memorable experiences en route. In this case, those experiences involved almost no panic and several unexpected, pleasant interludes.

Just before I left on the trip, I finished writing an article that is scheduled to appear in the November/December 2011 issue of PieceWork magazine. The topic is four rare breeds of sheep. PieceWork's criterion for breeds to be included was that yarn had to be available for people to work with—not just fleece. My criterion—my reason for selecting these breeds and featuring them together—was that there had to be at least one pivotal moment in the breed's history when an individual, or small handful of people, made a crucial difference in its survival. Additionally, I wanted them to demonstrate a variety of types of wools.

The breeds that fitted all those requirements?

Leicester Longwool

Manx Loaghtan

Navajo Churro

American Tunis

As a bonus, I liked the symmetry of two "Old World" breeds (Leicester Longwool and Manx Loaghtan) and two "New World" breeds (Navajo Churro and American Tunis). I wrote the main text and consulted with PieceWork on where people could locate yarn. We chatted together about designers who could develop projects using the breeds' wool. Fun! I love collaborations.

I thought I was done with my part. (When have I thought that before?)

At approximately mile 1239.8 of my trip, I connected to the internet through one or another of the many wireless networks that kept me marginally up-to-date and found the following e-mail:

You noted before that you could provide photos of locks of clean fiber and perhaps small swatches of knitting. Are you still able to provide these images? . . .

If we can have any other photography—or swatches to shoot here, by 8/25, that would be fabulous. Our photoshoot is . . . on 8/26.

Those dates were soon enough after my intended return home that I needed to come up with solutions while traveling. I checked the hard drive of my laptop. I FOUND and sent photographs of:

Leicester Longwool locks: yes

Leicester Longwool swatch: NO

Manx Loaghtan locks: yes

Manx Loaghtan swatch: yes

Navajo Churro locks: yes

Navajo Churro swatch: NO, but I happened to have a ball of yarn with me

American Tunis locks: NO

American Tunis swatch: yes

I sent along the images that already existed. The American Tunis lock could be dealt with as soon as I got home. I could knit a Navajo Churro swatch during my trip, using the yarn in my portable project box.

The Leicester Longwool necessitated a creative solution, one that I could implement while transient. Leicester Longwools are, for the most part, found in the British Isles and the eastern United States, but . . . there might be a yarn shop in Oregon or Washington that might carry breed-specific yarns. . . . I knew it was a long shot.

But I'm part of an online group that has a disproportionate number of folks from the Pacific Northwest, and they're all into fiber. With my intermittent access to the internet, I sent out an SOS:

I'm traveling . . . and it turns out I need some Leicester Longwool. . . . I have a spindle with me, but it would be great if I could find spun yarn, because . . . well, it'll be faster, and for this audience, commercially spun is ideal.

I'm near Wenatchee, WA. . . . I'll be driving west on route 2 to Seattle. . . . Then south on I-5 . . . [to] southern OR . . . (not much time for straying from the path, although I'll need short breaks . . . I know that Woodland Woolworks is no longer available). Mid-next-week I'll be heading back east, possibly via . . . Crater Lake . . . then I-90 through Wyoming.

Anybody know of sources along this path? ONE SKEIN (or equivalent fiber) of Leicester Longwool will suffice.

I have some leicester longwool fiber in my stash and could spin you enough for a swatch in a pinch, however I also found this resource for commercial yarn . . . not far off the I-5.

If that doesn't work, I'm . . . also not far off the I-5 and would be happy to spin. Let me know if either of these options helps...

YES!

Two and a half hours after Janel's e-mail arrived, I had arranged to meet a shepherd—one who breeds Leicester Longwools in the Pacific Northwest—at a freeway exit and get some yarn that she'd had millspun, my choice of singles or two-ply (BOTH). I said I might need some fleeces as well, if she had any that would suit my purposes. She did. (These fleeces are for a class I'll be teaching next spring.)

I stopped a little farther down the road to show Janel what she'd facilitated (two skeins and three fleeces).

The wool was so pretty that Janel took photos of it, too.

And I knitted swatches on my way east (although not while driving, so progress was slow but steady).

Soon after I got home, I opened my e-mail to find this message from PieceWork:

I hope you’ve returned from your travels safely and that you had a great time.

I’m following up with you about the possible lock and swatch that we still need a photo of—either your photo or the items themselves for our photoshoot Friday in Ft. Collins. Did anyone respond to your [appeal] for yarn?

My response:

Funny you should ask! I got the second new swatch finished last night, and those two missing ones (Leicester Longwool and Navajo Churro) got washed/blocked last night. I checked them this morning to see if they were dry, and they're close enough to be photographed this afternoon. I'll also pull the American Tunis and get a lock photo--plus I was thinking I'd set up a single photo with all four breeds' locks in it, to give you an alternative.